Is your car happy or sad, submissive or dominant? What does his/her face tell you.

Maybe this is one of those “no duh” studies, but it’s kind of cool that someone actually applied the scientific method to our emotional reaction to vehicles.

According to a report co-authored by Florida State University Professor Dennis Slice, people see human facial features in the front end of automobiles and ascribe various personality traits to cars. The study, which was published in the December 2008 issue of the journal Human Nature, has been picked up by media around the world.

Slice, along with doctoral student Sonja Windhager, used a complex statistical analysis to conduct the study, which asked 40 people to view high-resolution, 3-D computer reconstructions and printed images of 38 cars. The models came out between 2004 and 2006 and represented 26 manufacturers.

More than 30 percent of participants associated a human or animal face with at least 90 percent of the cars. Each participant was also asked to rate each model on 19 personality traits such as dominance, maturity, gender and friendliness.

Nearly 100 percent of participants agreed on whether a car was dominant or submissive.

“In our study, people generally agreed in their ratings,” Slice said.

Cars considered high-power vehicles had elongated hoods, pronounced lower car bodies and more angular headlights that looked like a frown.

Cars considered “female” or “childlike” had headlights with their upper edge relatively close to the midline and had an upward shift of the car’s lateral-most points.

But this study isn’t just about happy cars. It’s a look into the human psyche.

“The study provides a check into the rearview mirror of our prehistoric psyches,” according to an FSU press release. “The researchers theorized that, through biological evolution, our brains have been designed to infer a great deal of information about another person — age, sex, attitudes, personality traits and emotions — from just a glance at their face.

The ability to “read” faces in order to identify people, detect possible kin relationships and assess potential danger has been so important to human development that people have adapted a hypersensitivity to detecting facial features even if they are presented in rather abstract ways.”

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